The fourth nearest star: Lalande 21185

 Lalande 21185 is a magnitude- 7.5 red-dwarf star in the constellation Ursa Major.  It lies about midway between the constellation Leo and the Big Dipper asterism.  At a distance of 8.3 ly,  it is the fourth nearest star system, because the Alpha Centauri system consists of three stars.  The closest member of the Alpha Centauri trio is Proxima Centauri, a magnitude-11 red dwarf.  Next comes Barnard's Star, a magnitude-9.5 red dwarf, then Wolf 359, a magnitude-13.5 red dwarf, and then Lalande 21185.  From this list of the six nearest stars, four of them are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye.

Location of Lalande 21185. credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

 

Lalande 21185 is circled.  Olympus E-M1iii + Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens.

In the image above, the constellation Leo is in the bottom half and the location of Lalande 21185 is marked with a circle near the top.  Lalande 21185 is the brightest red dwarf star in the northern celestial hemisphere.  It can be seen with binoculars.

Lalande 21185 is at the center.  Sightron infini D50 telescope (540mm focal length)

Comet Lovejoy: 2015

 Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) was discovered in August 2014 by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy.  By January 2015 it had reached magnitude 4 and was a naked-eye comet.  These images were obtained in January 2015 from Santa Fe.  Three lenses were used: a Nikon 50mm f/1.2 Ai-s, Rokinon 85mm f/1.4, and a Vivitar 135mm f/2.3 Series 1.

The images were obtained with a Sony A7 camera and are newly processed (after more than 11 years) from the raw files using Affinity Photo  image-editing software.  Strong white-balance corrections were required to compensate for the red skyglow present in urban Santa Fe.  Exposure times varied between 15 to 30 sec.

Comet Lovejoy near the Hyades (left) and Pleiades (top), 15 Jan.  Nikon 50mm f/1.2.

 The comet exhibited the typical green glow of diatomic carbon.  A hint of the tail is visible in this 30-s exposure at ISO 800.

10 January. Rokinon 85mm f/1.4.

The motion of the comet was easily observable over short time intervals.  The composite image below spans 4.6 h, during which the comet moved about 0.6°.

10 January, Rokinon 85mm. Three-image composite.

 

16 January, Vivitar 135mm.

August Milky Way: 2019

 I found this image while looking through old pictures during a long (3690 mi) just-concluded road trip to Michigan from Santa Fe.  It is a view of the August Milky Way (18 Aug 2019)  from Bristol Head Acres.  It has the appearance of being shot through a diffusion filter, but it was not.  There must have been a thin cloud layer or wildfire-smoke haze acting as a natural diffusion filter.

Three planetary bodies are visible in this image: Saturn (upper left), Jupiter (brightest object right of center), and the dwarf-planet Ceres (requires zooming in, see second image).

The lens used was a Bower (Samyang) 35mm f/1.4 manual-focus lens on a Sony A7 camera.

 

The dwarf-planet Ceres is circled in this cropped section:

 A wider view of the same scene was obtained with a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 manual-focus lens:

Two famous double stars with the Sightron infini D50 refractor

 The inifini D50 refractor is a 50-mm aperture, 540-mm focal length (f/10.8) achromatic refractor manufactured by Sightron Japan.  It was designed primarily as a visual instrument, but it is of course fun to see how it performs photographically as well.

Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris) is well known as the "North Star", but it has other qualities which are of interest to astronomy enthusiasts.   It is the closest Cepheid Variable, which makes it an important part of the cosmic distance ladder.  It is also a triple-star system.  Two of the components are visible with modest amateur telescopes.  The third component is a close companion of the massive primary star and has only been resolved with the Hubble Space Telescope.

 

Polaris.  Sony A7iii + Rokinon 75mm f/1.8 + Hoya Softon filter.

Polaris B is a magnitude-8.7 companion separated from Polaris A (mag 2) by 18 arcsec.  To photograph this star with the D50, an Astro-Tech 2x telecentric focal extender was used with an Olympus E-M5iii camera.   The camera and extender was inserted directly into a Baader 90-deg Amici prism diagonal.  The telescope was mounted on a manual alt-az mount.  Polaris is close enough (0.62°) to the north celestial pole that a tracking mount is not required for short exposures.

Sightron infini D50 + Baader prism and camera.

 

Polaris A and B with the infini D50 refractor. 2-sec exposure.

 Mizar and Alcor is a well known naked-eye double star in the handle of the Big Dipper. What is less well known is that this is actually a six-star system.  Mizar, the brightest component of the pair, is easily resolvable in small telescopes into two components, each of which is also a spectroscopic double star.  Alcor, the fainter companion to Mizar, is a spectroscopic double as well.

Mizar and Alcor (center). Rokinon 75mm f/1.8 + softon filter.

 The Mizar and Alcor system was photographed with the D50 refractor mounted on a ZWO AM3 tracking mount.

Mizar (top) and Alcor (bottom). 2-sec exposure.

 

 

Lunar eclipse

The full moon of March is traditionally known as the "Worm Moon".  This year it was also eclipsed.

 The sequence below spanned the time from 2:52 am to 4:46 am MST in the wee hours of 03 March.  There was a cloud band to the north at the start and some clouds did eventually come sliding past, but the eclipse was mostly unobstructed.  I gave up just before the official end of totality because a stubborn cloud was partially obscuring the moon.

The copper hue captured so well by the camera was not very apparent visually.  Even when viewed through the Sightron D50 refractor at 22x, the color was very washed out.  There may have been a high thin cloud layer attenuating the color.  A hint of this haze layer is evident in the middle picture of the montage below.

Equipment used: Astro-Tech AT72EDII refractor + Olympus E-M5iii camera on a ZWO AM3 mount.

Maximum eclipse: 04:34 am

 

Just past peak, with background stars visible (north to the right)

Some favorites from 2025

 I was recently looking for some general-interest photos from last year and came up with this short list.  There is only one Milky Way photo in the set, and its the winter Milky Way, not the more impressive summer version.

Northern Lights over Creede, 11 Nov. Laowa 15mm f/2.

 

Venus, Jupiter, and Orion rising over Snowshoe Mountain, 02 Sep. Leica 9mm f/1.7.

Venus is immersed in the soft glow of Zodiacal Light just above the mountain ridgeline.

Jupiter, Orion, and Sirius over Snowshoe Mt, 02 Sep. Olympus 17mm f/1.8.

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, but in the two photos above it is outshone by the planets Jupiter and Venus.  The reddish hue of the supergiant star Betelgeuse also stands out nicely in the second photo.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) setting behind Bristol Head, 29 Oct. Canon FD 300mm f/4L.

The Winter Milky Way, 02 Nov. Leica 9mm f/1.7

In this photo the winter Milky Way arcs above the green airglow along the southern horizon.  There is a beam of blue light projecting upward from the bottom right.  This comes from an inconsiderate landowner two miles away on Highway 149.  I was initially annoyed by this light trespass (and still am), but it does add an unusual element to the picture.

February Moon, March Sun

 Last night (28 Feb) the Sightron infini D50 f/10.8 refractor was used to photograph the 12.4-day moon.  There were some thin cloud bands passing, but there was enough time to catch a clear shot.  The camera used on the moon was the Olympus E-M5iii.

This morning (01 Mar), the D50 was used with a ZWO ASI294MC-Pro camera to photograph the sun.  In addition to a front-mounted Baader solar filter,  ND-0.9 and UV-IR-cut filters were also used.  

Both of these shots were meant to test a new mounting arrangement for the D50 refractor.  This scope ships with a 4-inch flush-mounted  Vixen dovetail that works fine with the light-weight stock diagonal and eyepieces.  However, when heavier accessories are attached, such as a camera or large eyepiece, balance becomes tricky because there is not enough forward movement available. The new arrangement consists of two More Blue 60-mm tube rings (from Astro Hutech)  and PrimaLuceLab dual-sided Vixen-Arca-Swiss dovetails.

 

Sunspots are visible again after a stretch of several spotless days.

Moon photography setup.

 

Solar photography setup.